Universe Sandbox ² 2016 Roadmap

Happy New Year! 2015 was an exciting year for us. A few highlights: Universe Sandbox ² got a whole lot faster thanks to multiple physics refactorings, it was made a lot prettier thanks to a new user interface and a slew of eye candy upgrades, and we released on Steam Early Access with extremely positive reviews which haven’t stopped coming in.

The good news is that we don’t plan on slowing down. The following is a list of our hopes for Universe Sandbox ² in 2016.

It’s not necessarily a roadmap in the sense that we’ll get to these features in this order. But these are some of the big landmarks we are very excited to explore as we continue development through 2016 and beyond.

More Planetary Details & Interactions

A laser melting a frozen Earth.

Planets in Universe Sandbox ² will be visually more detailed and responsive to interactions, all part of a project which we are internally calling “automata.”

This works by increasing the spatial resolution of data. That is, instead of having one point of data for an object’s property, like temperature, there will now be a 2D grid of data. In the example of temperature, this means that collisions can impact values locally, so heat spreads from the impact site rather than just raising the overall temperature. In turn, this will make for much more dynamic visuals. This will eventually also factor in elevation, making possible more detailed surface deformation and a lot more. And along with the improved composition system mentioned below, this will form the groundwork for basic life simulation.

Oh, and there will also be lasers.

Improved Composition System

Currently we support four materials for a body’s composition: iron, silicate, water, and hydrogen. We’ve been discussing ways we can include additional materials to this list. We’d also like to improve the interactions between radii and compositions, as the results are sometimes a bit confusing right now. Another component we’ve discussed is atmospheric composition. This is a very tricky problem with no clear solution, but it’s often requested and we are working toward it.

Space Megastructuresa.k.a. The Feature No One Knew They Wanted Until They Had It

A megastructure around Earth. The green lines are the current, early rendering which will be improved.

We’re not ready to give away too many details on this yet… but doesn’t “Space Megastructures” sound pretty cool? The answer is yes, they do sound pretty cool, because they are. Using physics based space tethers as the idea behind the basic building block, these structures can come in many shapes and sizes. We still have a lot of work to do on these, but you can start imagining things along the lines of space elevators, Dyson spheres, and ring worlds.

Virtual Reality

What more needs to be said? Internally we have basic support for this going already, but there’s still a lot of work to do in fine-tuning the experience of reaching out, grabbing the Moon, then hurling it toward Earth. Our initial efforts are directed at getting it to work with the upcoming Steam VR based HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift.

User Interface Rewrite

This is largely an under-the-hood rewrite, but it’s going to make it possible to scale the interface for larger and different-sized resolutions, and also allow for language localization down the road. Technically, we’re transitioning from our own internal system to the new native system in Unity (our 3D engine) that didn’t exist when we started on this project 4 years ago.

Language Localization

As mentioned above, the rewrite to the user interface will make it a lot easier for us to implement localization. Our next step, once we’re ready, is to start the crowd-sourced localization process so we can get Universe Sandbox ² running in as many languages as possible.

Stellar Evolution Rewrite

Universe Sandbox ² will support 16 evolutionary star types with the stellar evolution rewrite , versus the previous 5. The improved evolution model, based on thesepapers, is primarily a function of mass and age or metallicity, and will work for evolutionary types outside of main-sequence stars.

The result will be more dynamic and accurate properties for stars, as well as smoother transitions from type to type. The model also will now account for mass loss from solar winds, and be able to differentiate envelope from core. As a whole, this is also a stepping stone toward being able to illustrate stellar nucleosynthesis in Universe Sandbox ². We’ve hit a few snags in fully implementing this, but Jenn, our astrophysicist, has been making good, steady progress.

Total Body Fragmentation

This feature was partially implemented before, but was removed during the physics rewrite. Now we’re about ready to add it back in, and once we add some nice visual flair, this will make collisions and explosions even more epic and realistic as planets get completely broken apart.

Improved Galaxies

We’ve been saying for a bit now that we’d like to give galaxies some love again, as they’ve been mostly overlooked recently while we work on other projects. Our plan includes completely reworking procedural galaxies, which tend to all look the same right now, and fixing a number of bugs which currently make galaxies a little difficult to interact with.

Atmospheric Scattering

We often see requests from users that the view from the surface (press “C” when focused on a body) could be improved. We completely agree. One big step toward this is accounting for the atmosphere (if the planet has one), resulting in nice colored skies, sunrises, and sunsets, all products of atmospheric scattering. This will greatly increase the immersion when looking up from one of your planets.

Steam Workshop

Once we get the save/load mechanics even more solid, we plan to add in support for Steam Workshop. This will allow users to easily share saved simulations and objects with each other, which will be a very cool way of seeing what everyone is creating with Universe Sandbox ².

Achievements

Steam Achievements are another common request for Universe Sandbox ². They can add a little incentive for exploring the simulation and trying things you wouldn’t normally try. Have any good ideas for Achievements? Let us know on the forum!

Expanded Climate Change Exploration

Our climate models for Earth and Mars have been successfully implemented in Universe Sandbox ² for a while. But we’d like to strengthen our focus on this component to further help educate users on one of the most pressing issues we face today as citizens of the Earth.

Mobile Version

Again, another common request for Universe Sandbox ². We haven’t yet moved beyond discussing this as a possibility, but we are very interested in a mobile version. Universe Sandbox ² could work extremely well with touch commands, and a mobile version would greatly increase the amount of people who could get their hands on it. With constant improvements to mobile technology, and Unity’s tools for building mobile apps (the 3D engine we use), this could be a reality sooner than we think.

Fixing Bugs

We’ve hired a dedicated tester whose job is to rigorously test Universe Sandbox ², helping us find and fix bugs as we continue development. We’re a small team, and the nature of a massive space sandbox means that there are an extraordinary amount of things to test. Our community has been super helpful to this end, but we’re happy to now have someone who’s devoted to this task and can help fill in the cracks.

The Future of Universe Sandbox ²

This roadmap may seem ambitious (and it is), but we’ve already gone pretty far into unexplored territory. We’re committed to making Universe Sandbox ² better and better as we continue to create something that’s never been done before. We hope you’re as excited as we are about the future.

I’ve got a question about megastructures. Are they something that will appear naturally or do we have to place them? For instance, say I create a planet and the conditions are right so life forms, will they eventually develop a megastructure if you wait long enough?

IF a planet has the ability to support life, will there be things that will display life actually exists on the planet?

Like, let’s say Earth. If you look at the dark side of the earth, you will see lights of cities and all that from it’s surface. Will planets that we manage to make life supporting have any changes like this?

I know perhaps it’s not the most important thing on the list of what to work on and add into this game, but I feel like their really isn’t much reward for managing to create a life supporting planet in this game currently.

You’re totally right, there’s no reward for creating a life supporting planet. The scope of our life simulation plans are currently simple, as we’re already taking on so many other features. And it’s our goal to simulate life in a realistic way, which makes everything more complicated. We’re aiming to so simplistic, non-intelligent life first and then reevaluate at that point. Either way… there’s tons of stuff to do before even that will work like the increased surface detail feature and upgrading our composition system and atmosphere handing.

It would be nice when you will be able to create intelligent life as we know it, to see through our solar system, small “emigrants to other planets” an example: Earth emigrate to a planet that can sustain life … translated with google translate..

I’m not sure… Maybe you’d make it similar to the pulse, but it goes in every direction at once. Because there isn’t complicated life yet, I guess it would only heat up a planet to a point that the life likelihood would become zero?

“The seven installations in the final Halo Array function via form of lethal radiation designed to kill all sentient life in the installation’s three-dimensional radius of 25,000 light-years; when fired in concert with the rest of the Array, this sterilizing effect covers the entire galaxy.”

I have been with you guys since before the steam release and you have always impressed me with the work and dedication that you have on show, this simulator has gone through tremendous changes since the early days and I’m eagerly awaiting the many features you have listed thus far and even more so for the internal ideas you guys may have. Much respect to you all.

Will there be improved handling when a black hole flies through a star? I expect at least something to happen when a black hole touches a star but currently you can have one orbiting through it without much effect.

Hey, the future of this game sounds amazing, I have some achievement ideas: 1 could be managing to create life on Mars or any other planet, create a pulsar (simple but easy achieves), run all of the tutorials, save a simulation, destroy 100 Earth’s, crash the game? (haha). I hope you like these ideas, there is just a few do these look good?

I wonder.. could it be possible to implement an add-on to build buildings on life supporting planets, basically a Spore/SimCity 2013/Google Earth-type deal? I mean, this could increase the download time, and might draw people away from the “universe focus”, but I think this would be a cool and interesting feature.

Do you think you CAN make it so that intelligent life on planets can build megastructures, or will that be too hard? Also, can you make black holes better, like accretion disks and sucking material off of planets and stars, making them smaller? That would be amazing!

We’re working toward basic life simulation, but something along the lines of intelligent life is beyond our current plan. We’d definitely like to improve black holes, though, and we’re getting closer to simulating accretion disks.

Thanks for the answer. I’ll admit- SPH is probably the thing I look forward to the most. Do you think it is something we might expect to see within the next couple years? In my mind, at least, SPH will bring an already fun simulation to a truly fantastic level of realism.

I understand how complex implementing this will be. I hope you see it as being as important as I do. After all, Thomas Grønneløv is now working with you guys. I’m looking forward to where this is going.

Happy to see that the game will get some cool new updates. It would be cool if tectonic and glaciation cycles were added to Earth’s surface. Maybe even volcanic activity with smoke plumes in the atmosphere? It would be awesome to see more environmental simulations or natural disasters on Earth’s surface. The immersion in this game is already amazing, but the inclusion of those simulations, showing Earth change over thousands-millions of years would be even better.

I am very excited about HTC Vive support! I have been dreaming about a space simulation game like this with full VR support since I first tried Titans of Space on my DK2. (http://www.titansofspacevr.com/)

What are you planning for the VR control scheme?

If I might suggest something, take a look at the recent Epic VREditor features for Unreal. To move around in the space you could grab the space around you and move it under your feat plus scale it up and down by clicking with both controllers then spreading them out. (Like pinch to zoom on your phone) Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKO9fEjNiio

Please keep me in mind when you want a Vive tester. I will be first in line for pre-order on Feb 29th. I would love to take this into local school’s science classes.

Love the “game” so far. One of my favorite things to do is create cool space scenes for my desktop background. I’ve discovered that I would like the ability to pan from my currently locked location. I don’t always want a planet/star/thingy to be the center of my view – I haven’t figured out how to do that. Having more features that support the artistic uses of your game would be great – for starters, more camera control.

How about the ability to add gas clouds (if not for star formation, at least for the visual effects)?

Lastly, and this could easily translate into an achievement system, I hope one day the game provides a type of scripting/plugin/mod interface for simulating spacecraft GNC (guidance, navigation & control). For example, an achievement could be a successful navigation from one celestial body (like Earth) to a stable orbit around some other body (like Mars).

if you do add intelligent life can there be Galaxy wars where we can give planets orbital weapons or super nova bombs or HAVE GALATIC WARFARE OR NORMAL WARFARE ON PLANETS WITH NUKES AND SEE ALL THE CHAOS AND THE MAYHAM AND ARE CREATIONS BATTLING IT OUT TO SEE WHO IS THE PLAYERS FAVORITE. You know for scientific reasons

I also want gas giant collisions and rocky planet collisions to be different from each other so I can see what happens when Saturn and Jupiter collide and not have it seem like a rocky planet collision

Do you think that in the future there will be a feature like a black hole that is taking a stars energy without actually taking in the star itself? I know you will be working on whats here first but do you think it could be possible at all?

Yes it’s certainly possible, and it would be very cool to see that simulated. Thomas, our physics programmer, is currently working on adding in Roche limit fragmentation, which is exactly the tech we’ll need for this. You can check out his recent work on Roche limits here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTduLQh_Hc0

Hey ! Universe Sandbox is truly amazing ! I was wondering like others here about the level of fragmentation you want to reach. Until now a body is fragmented into smaller similars parts, but will we see someday smoother destruction tearing appart a large portion of the mantle of the Earth for example and be visually noticeable ? Like in the Moon’s formation ?

How will total fragmentation work?Will it be like the explode function that it spawns smaller round objects or will it be like real procedural fragmentation so that the fragments are sharp and not round? And will there be some kind of graph to see how much an object bends gravity?

gas giant collisions seem kinda underwhelming currently, i was wondering if there would be anything special with that happening at all like gas clouds being thrown out when collisions occur or is that not a thing that happens

Just if you are curios in how to improve surface view,check out Space Engine,that’s the best example i could give you.
Space Engine is the same as universe sandbox,excepting the fact that you cannot move planets,kill planets,or modify the galaxy in any way.And if there is a feature like that and i just don’t know it,it would sure be laggy.Those procedual generated galaxies and planets are amaizing.Really you have to check that out and take some time to enjoy it.I made some gorgeous pictures from their sufrace.
Thank you for reading,
Alex

I just want some real climate feture and some evolution of life like non-intelligent life to conolization on different species like alien and cool stuff wich they are ai and turn friend or Aİ that would be amazing and more planets damm sure it will be a where good idea
Thank you for reading
Momidik(muharrem)

And also, when exactly do you think the laser update is coming? (hehehehehe) *cough* i want to explode planets *cough* and also can you fix a glitch with explosions that when you explode something its materials are set to all 0% and they’re unchangeable plus it makes things not collide.

We unfortunately don’t have a timeline for when it’ll be ready. We hope fairly soon, but there are a lot of pieces that have to come together to make it work. We’ll likely have the new Roche limit fragmentation working before that.

Another idea:have a option that it will show the true luminosity of the stars like space engine.
2nd idea:have a option that it will activate total fragmentation.
last idea:when you hover over a specific word it will show the definition of it or just like this (Mass²) but instead of squared it will show a question mark also make it only work when you click on a planet,then when of click the gui it will only work there until the last of it.
one question,would total fragmentation look something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPJG5oVjvME at 2:25

Correction at the last idea
i mean’t:when you click on a planet it will show a gui,when you click the gui it will show Basic-Actions
Only the first main word like mass will be defined until the last main word of materials
i have’nt played US2 but i watched alot of videos about it
if it is there already then ignore this idea
Sorry

Sorry, we can’t give a good estimate at this time… Hopefully within the next month or two we’ll have an update ready. A lot of the new features we’re working on are very big projects with a lot of interconnected parts, so implementing all of them is a big task. We expect our next update to feature the new Roche limit fragmentation.

I’m sorry if we were misleading. I’m not sure what you’re referring to, though, I see in the comments here that we said lasers would come before megastructures, which are still a long way off.

We have lasers sort of working right now, but in a very limited way. There are unfortunately a lot of pieces of the puzzle that have to come together to get it working in a satisfying way. Roche limit fragmentation, however, stands a bit better on its own, so we expect to have it in sooner.

Can you guys please add better explosions with rocky planets and gas giants, for example…When you shoot a rocky planet or something else like that into a gas giant that is bigger than the rocky planet, the rocky planet will explode BEFORE it hits the gas giant, just like in real life? Thanks!
-Lewis

I have a bit of a more technical suggestion. I didn’t really think I’d post it, but I saw that some of you guys were still (as recently as 2 days ago) responding to people here, so figured I’d give it a shot. I also don’t know if this is something you already do or not.

The basic idea is to make it so that the CPU can pull as much of the data that it’s going to work on into its internal cache all at once, and thus doesn’t have to pull in some data, stop, pull in more data from somewhere else, stop, and so forth. The approach is known as ‘Data Oriented Design’.

Essentially, have data stored sequentially in RAM. For example, if you have the planets in a linked list, move it instead to an array or vector. If you’re using C# and not C++, make sure they’re also structs and not objects. You might want to actually move positions and rotations to separate arrays to make it faster, too.

The reason this is important is that this happens to be one of the number one reasons for code to run slower than it theoretically should. RAM speeds have increased slower than CPU speeds over the years, and being able to pull as much data into the CPU cache as possible all at once (especially with recent Intel CPUs and mobos supporting things like prefetching) greatly helps speed things up.

I first heard about this from this PDF about development on the PS3; but it’s pretty relevant to programming in general:

A very good explanation for this is given by Bjarne Stroustrup (who created C++), where he explains that he was greatly puzzled when he first found out that linked lists are always slower than arrays/vectors: